If you have bad credit, are worried about your credit, or are just wondering how you doing right now, there is one thing that you definitely should be doing to stay on top of your credit. Hint: It is not just about paying your bills on time.

A couple of weeks ago, my son called me up and wanted to know why he got denied for a loan. I asked him if he checked his credit recently, and he replied, "What's a credit score?" So I had to explain to him about the score that was associated with your credit cards.

When you first start using credit, the first thing you should be doing is checking your credit history. At the very minimum, one time a year.

Your credit score attempts to predict how you manage your credit, and if you can handle a large loan and will pay it off. There are actually there different companies that calculate credit scores, and each of them has a slightly different formula (which is also proprietary), which calculates the scores.

Your credit score can range between 300 and 850; the higher your credit is the better. When I asked my son to check his credit, he said it was around the mid 500s. That is not a very good credit score (the national average is around 700), but we could work on it.

Fortunately, the one thing you can do to fix your credit history is by getting a credit report from each of the three companies that produce credit scores.